Yesterday, Loose Lips Daily linked to San Francisco Bike Blog– which thinks the Washington Area Bicycle Association should bring its bike valet service to Inauguration 2009.

“Who wants to get hands-runneth-over by security guards just so you can stand on a packed [Metro] platform with dudes in blue, carrying big, automatic weapons? Not me. People need to be able to go by bike, and they need a place to put their bikes when they arrive. The local cycling organization knows how to do bike valet parking - they should offer it at the inauguration.”

Turns out WABA has a Thursday meeting with DDOT to discuss doing exactly that.

If all goes well at the meeting, says WABA staffer Henry Mesias, the organization will set up a bike valet station towards the south of the Capitol and just outside the inauguration’s hard-security-perimeter.

In a thoroughly predictable turn of events, Hillary Clinton and Ron Paul were the write-in champions of 2008 (by all accounts a banner year for write-ins). That makes plenty of sense, given that both Clinton and Paul boasted die-hard adherents with a bit of a disenfranchisement complex.

To paraphrase President-elect Obama: “When people get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward candidates who actually have a hope in hell.”

But to assume these two were the only major write-in players would be to underestimate the imagination and pluck of the American people. As Matt Dunn of the New Jersey Star-Ledger sagely observes:

Voters in Cumberland County unsatisfied with the choices given to them on Election Day chose to vote on their own terms in this year’s election. The write-in candidates stood little chance of defeating those candidates whose names were listed on the ballot, but that didn’t stop voters from exercising their right to vote for whomever they saw fit.

Below the jump, some of my favorite write-ins from Ohio, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Florida, and D.C.

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As if his soft stance on corruption wasn’t sufficient evidence enough that Eric Holder is a questionable choice for attorney general, there’s also his stance on drugs, which during his time as a U.S. Attorney in D.C. was too harsh.

In 1996, Holder proposed cracking down on marijuana users and sellers, a policy perspective which was and—assuming he still holds it—is completely antithetical to President-Elect Barack Obama’s promise to end federal crackdowns on medical marijuana dispensaries.

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Eric H. Holder, Jr., former Deputy Attorney General and senior legal advisor to President-elect Barack Obama, was tapped today to serve as Obama’s Attorney General, Newsweek reports. (Holder also served as co-chief of Obama’s veep selection committee.)

In a cover story in 1997—the same year Clinton nominated Holder for Dep. Attorney General—City Paper questioned Holder’s approach to corruption during his tenure as U.S. Attorney for D.C.

But for all the love Holder has engendered in the community as U.S. Attorney, he has had precious little impact on the city’s endemic municipal corruption.

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Whoa. Michelle Obama, on 60 Minutes tonight, went out of her way to mention that she and her husband plan on getting involved in local D.C. issues (and, in one of those minuscule, easily overanalyzed signifiers, she did say “D.C.”, not “Washington”).

The mention came in response to a question directed at Michelle Obama by Steve Kroft about how she would conduct herself as first lady. He followed up with a question about whether the Obamas were “seriously” considering a public school for their girls Sasha and Malia. Michelle Obama punted on that one.

Here’s what she had to say:

The primary focus for the first year will be making sure the kids make it through the transition. But there are many issues that I care deeply about. I care about military families and the work-family balance issue. I care about education. Both Barack and I believe that we can have an impact in the D.C. area…you know, in terms of making sure we’re contributing to the community that we immediately live in. That’s always been something that we try to do, whether its in our own neighborhoods, or in the schools that we’ve attended. So there’s plenty to do.

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Serious Eats, Ed Levine’s must-read site for food lovers, tested president-elect Barack Obama’s Midwestern-style chili recipe. Its verdict? More salt please. Oh, it could also use some fresh chili peppers and more depth of flavor. In other words, it sucks.

Hey, at least it’s not a cheeseburger pizza.

That’s right: more from last night on U Street.

[Footage courtesy of Amanda Hess and Ted Scheinman]

Trouble viewing? Try the YouTube version.

Photograph by Darrow Montgomery

Nobody seemed to know whose pickup truck it was—certainly the police didn’t, but they weren’t about to arrest the twenty or so people jammed onto the cargo area.  Slowly, imperceptibly, it rolled us down 16th Street as we chanted “Sí se puede!� and “O-BAM-A� and—yes—�U.S.A.!� to the approval of crowds on either side of the road.  Flag-waving pedestrians constituted a peaceable but overwhelming force amid the standstill traffic, hollering genially at the gridlocked cars and asking those of us on the pickup if they could jump on.  They could.  Horns blared euphorically and strangers hugged or high-fived or fist-bumped or made out, and the truck continued its snail’s march toward the White House.

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OK, so it’s actually just another attempt at guerilla theater-marketing: Charter Theatre honcho Keith Bridges stars (alongside actor-playwright Chris Stezin) in a 7-minute drama about why Charter won’t be staging Richard Washer’s Quartet, originally announced for the new-play specialists’ January-February slot.

Watch (agog) as Bridges explains his emergency back-up plan to his 3-year-old daughter Rosie: “Sweetie, papa has a brilliant idea. He’s going to save his theater company by inviting Barack Obama to come see his next play, called Am I Black Enough Yet? Isn’t that brilliant?”

Viz:

Choice moment: an “outtake,” toward the end, where Bridges tries to get wee Rosie to pimp the Charter website. She’s so over it that she won’t even wave bye-bye when he finally gives up.

Backstory: Charter lost one of the cast members for Quartet — a play that was already “a tough sell,” according to Stezin. (It’s not a comedy. It’s “a low-key, thoughtful piece,” and its musically-inspired structure is anything but orthodox.)

“Bad mojo started to pile up,” Stezin says, and with every theater in town having trouble putting butts in seats, a postponement seemed the best thing for Quartet.

And as the company’s leadership talked about replacements, they realized that Am I Black Enough Yet?, a 2007 hit, “wasn’t just our best selling show last season — but our best-selling show ever,” Stezin says.

And so, a revival. And, coming down the pipe: More episodes of Charter’s serialized YouTube drama. And with any luck, a newly elected special guest and his family in the good seats.

“You can always dream,” Stezin says. “We’d love to get the attention of somebody on the Obama campaign.”

In which we chat with the Ward I councilmember about huge lines at the polls, the benefits of Adrian Fenty’s “early and strong support of the Obama candidacy,” and whether or not Carol Schwartz qualifies as a maverick.

Trouble viewing? Try the YouTube version.

In which we speak with a man named Willie Mays (!) about credible change and Michael Brown’s lackluster performance at air hockey.

Among other things.

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This is your brain.

This is your brain on democracy:

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In which we speak with ANC 1C-03 Commissioner Bryan Weaver about Michael Brown’s basketball skills, David Schwartzman’s uncanny resemblance to Walt Whitman, and the Sarah Palin Disney Movie.

Trouble viewing? Try the YouTube version.

Throughout the day, Jason Cherkis and I will bring you moving pictures from political hotspots in D.C. and Virginia. Look out for candidate interviews, voter testimonials, and copious b-roll of long, snaking lines at the polls.

Our first vid comes from Iglesia Festival (polling station for precinct 35), where we spoke with Alice Bell.

Trouble viewing? Try the YouTube version.

…The Corner’s John Derbyshire:

Now here’s a subversive little thought about that Khalidi tape that the Los Angeles Times is guarding like a cargo of plutonium.

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